The Quality of Mercy
This Sunday, we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. On this Sunday, we remember our God’s unmeasurable Mercy and compassion for us, His people, His creation. This Divine Mercy Sunday is also a command to be merciful in our dealings with one another.
Mercy and compassion are the bedrock of our faith. But not just our faith. The Mercy and compassion of God and the call to be people who are merciful and compassionate embraces all major religions.
Even a brief glimpse tells us that every major faith tradition holds Mercy as essential to its life, that Mercy requires many words to reflect its depth, that Mercy is a name for God, that Mercy is one of the qualities of God lived by people every day, and that Mercy is integrally connected to creation and to Earth.
Mohandas Gandhi told us, “The central teaching of the Hindu religion is that the mercy of kindness is the essence of all religion.”
The Buddha wrote, “Teach this triple truth to all: a generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”
The Jewish Rabbis proclaim, “The Torah begins with mercy and ends with mercy.” Pope Francis echoes this truth, “The pages of the Old Testament are steeped in mercy.”
In the Quran (7:156), Allah says, “My mercy embraces all things.”
In the sacred writings of Sikhism, we read, “Keep your heart content and cherish compassion for all beings; this way alone can your holy vow be fulfilled.”
I thank Sr. Elizabeth Davis, RSM from Newfoundland, for her extensive study that has enlightened my understanding and helped synthesize my thoughts. As a Christian, it is easy to think we invented the idea of a merciful and loving God. Yet, nothing is further from the truth. We did not discover Mercy. But, I dare say our God of Mercy created us and called us to life.
Mercy is what links us as a human family. It is the common bond for our world, the glue that has the potential to hold us together. If only we could recognize and unleash its power.
The word compassion is often used as a synonym for Mercy. At its root, the word compassion is derived —from “com,” meaning with, and “passion” from the core of suffering. So compassion means to suffer with another. Across our human family, no matter our faith tradition, we are beckoned by God to emulate His Mercy and to suffer with one another. Compassion is not the same as pity. Pity implies inequality of parties. Compassion/Mercy means being one with another in their suffering.
We are merciful and compassionate because God was merciful and compassionate first. God showed us how. Whether we are Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, Sikh, or Christian, God is first. And God is, above all else, merciful and compassionate.
Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice captured the power of Mercy with these words: “The quality of Mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes. It is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown…It is an attribute to God himself; earthly power doth then show likest God’s.”
Let us celebrate this Divine Mercy Sunday, recognizing that Mercy binds our human family. Let us embrace that truth by truly being merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
